More Geek

In case you don’t follow the expo circuit too closely, DigitalLife is a relatively new event put on my Ziff Davis. The expo is in New York City, at the Javits Center, and is aimed to be four days of consumer electronics fun for everyone. Unlike some other events anyone can attend and you can get a look at some cool products from a number of exciting products. The event is no where near the size or importance of CES, but it is before the holiday season and was able to bring in some big names, including Alienware, Intel, Seagate, Microsoft, and Sony.

DigitalLife is a mainly a consumer electronics show, so the focus is televisions, portable music players, and things like that, but with the collapse of E3 there was an increase in the amount of gaming companies. Computer-related companies had a noticeable presence as well, but were definitely the least significant of the three. One highlight of my coverage was a short meeting I had with Antec. They did not event have a booth at the show so the average attendee did not get to see what they were showing off, but I was lucky enough to set up some time to see what they had to show off.

Their meeting room was extremely small so they only brought along new products. This article is going to go over these items as well as a few things I heard and some pictures I took.

It was impossible to enter the room and not notice the new 900 enclosure. This product recently had what industry insiders call a “soft launch”, basically it was posted on the site but nothing else was done. As of right now I have only seen one review on the internet and I was led to believe that was just a few hastily taken shots in Antec’s office in Fremont.

Antec’s site has all the information you would want about this case, but to sum it up- the 900 is a case built for gamers and overclockers who need hardcore cooling. It comes stock with three large fans (two intake, one exhaust) and a 200mm exhaust fan on the top. In case that is not enough a 140mm fan can be added at the interior end of the hard drive bay to create a wind tunnel of sorts and a 120mm fan can be added on the side window. Like the rest of Antec’s cases this one is made of steel, but interesting changes include a fully perforated bezel, no included PSU, and a top tray for all your junk. At 19.4″ x 8.1″ x 18.4″ the case is surprisingly small, but it has all the features users will be looking for. The expected price is $149.

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The most exciting product Antec was showing off was the yet-to-be-announced P190, a follow up the the popular P180 high performance enclosure. Fundamentally this case is very much like the P180 but it does have some important changes.

As far as cooling is concerned, the new models adds a 200mm Tri-Cool fan on the side and a 120mm fan to the top. This means that right in the motherboard area there will be three 120mm fans and that huge 200mm which has affectionately been labeled the “Big Boy”. Small changed include the move from foam to a plexiglass on the inside to dampen sound, a more conventional venting system on the top, cable management behind the motherboard and a slight change to the exterior panels. There is one more things though…

The real surpise of the P190 is the use of included dual power supplies! The PSU area was completely revamped and it slated to include dual power supplies, one for the video card and one for the motherboard and other components. Antec reps made it very clear that these are not redundant power supplies, just a way to split the load between two units rather than using one very expensive power supply. The total wattage is rumored to be about 1200W between the two “Neo-Link” units. No price has been announced yet, but expect it to be about, maybe even over, $400. This case was designed with the hardcore enthusiast and the quad-SLI user in mind.

This is a very interesting move considering rumor has it that Antec is going to have a 1000W power supply out soon. There is no official word on this, but I would imagine it will be a Trio (which uses three +12V rails) and it will probably be announced for CES in January.

In case you were wondering, the P190 is extremely heavy, considerably more than the P180’s 36 pounds, due to the steel chassis and dual power supplies.

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Along with enthusiast gear The other big push for Antec was “green” power supply units. Known as the “EarthWatts” series, these are an 80 PLUS certified version of th Neo HE power supply. They are built for large companies who are interesting in saving power and outfitting all their computers with 80 PLUS units in order to qualify for a rebate from their electric company. The EarthWatts power supplies don’t have cool features like sleeved cables or modular connections, but they all use an Active PFC, have a PF value of up to 99%, always run at above 80% efficiency (no matter the load), and are ATX1V 2.2 compliant. Expect to see them in 380W, 430W, and 500W versions.

That was all that was exciting in the Antec meeting room. We also got to see a new motherboard cooling fan, universal replacement laptop charger, an updated notebook cooler, and the Trio power supply unit. I would expect some more interesting items to be delivered at CES in January, but these few, especially the cases, should be enough to keep us happy for now.